Lesson study for Children’s rights: a teacher training through arts-based education approach Open Access

Minors have been a source of great concern, as can be seen in different legal texts, including the Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959), a crucial milestone in the protection of childhood that enshrines 10 key principles regarding human rights (Gómez-Labajo, 2015). It also ensures non-discrimination and attention to the best interests of the child, as well as the rights to life and survival, identity, education, freedom of expression, health and well-being as foundational points for the protection and defense of children. This Declaration has been complemented, among others, by the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), a document that laid the fundamental groundwork for recognizing essential rights within the social, economic, developmental and cultural framework of childhood, providing a solid legal framework for the protection of these principles as an international treaty. Despite new documents aimed at addressing the numerous gaps and tackling the specific risk situations of the contemporary world, various reports from international organizations have been warning about the global and consistent non-compliance with these rights.

To highlight some statistics: 1 in 4 children under 5 years old are not registered, and even more lack a birth certificate (UNICEF, 2019), approximately 108.4 million, referred to as “landless nobodies” (Campillo, 2015), have been displaced from their home (ACNUR, 2022), 2.7 million die each year from malnutrition (UNICEF, 2023), 244 million children and young people between 6 and 18 years do not attend school. As specified in the Declaration of the UN General Assembly (2011), there is a commitment by the international community to promote an education that defends Children’s Rights as minimum standards for the treatment of people and one of the biggest contemporary educational challenges (UNICEF, 2024).

Research on HRE, which should include children’s rights, has experienced a notable boost in recent years, with the publication of cross-sectional studies that combine research methodologies from an innovative approach (Zajda, 2020; Osler et al., 2022). At the same time, there has also been an increased interest in exploring the training of teachers responsible for imparting it, although there are few studies that specifically focus on children’s rights (Tibbitts, 2018).

The objective of this research is to explore the possibilities of combining the lesson study (LS) with an arts-based educational approach for training teachers in children’s rights for students in the Degree in Early Childhood Education. To this end, a three-month teacher training program was designed and developed, structured around the phases of a lesson study, incorporating the arts as a central element for learning and pedagogical improvement. The results obtained through the analysis of qualitative, quantitative and visual data support the idea that integrating artistic strategies in lesson studies can be an enriching option for the training of future teachers, especially in such relevant and urgent areas as teacher training to understand and teach children’s human rights in their future professional practice.

Originating from Japan, LS is a continuous professional development approach for teachers aimed at improving teaching and learning, based on interdisciplinarity and direct research (Stigler and Hiebert, 1999; Murata, 2011; Elliott, 2019). With the rise of its application, there has been an increase in innovative studies that, among other areas, introduce arts education, exploring its possibilities both in teacher training—focused on professional improvement through arts-centered pedagogical practices (Hicyilmaz and Aykan, 2020)—and in student learning, examining how art classes can enhance transversal skills and knowledge (Heijnen et al., 2021). These research processes have incorporated the collaboration of experts in arts education to introduce quality pedagogical strategies, promoting a comprehensive and meaningful approach to teaching through art (Dotger and Walsh, 2015; Calleja and Formosa, 2020).

The rise of the integration of arts education in lesson studies can be explained by several common methodological points, both aimed at generating a transversal impact on the skills and competencies of participants. Both approaches advocate for a deep exploration of the educational context and the real dynamics in classrooms to better understand educational phenomena and strive for improvements in teaching and learning development (Elliott, 2019; Bucher et al., 2024). They also promote a comprehensive reflective process, documenting all phases of development from start to finish. In the case of teaching in the arts, this process includes not only planning and execution but also observation and study of the creative process, fostering a holistic understanding of the educational process. Both start from a perspective of collaborative and interdisciplinary research. In LS, collaborative processes are developed where teachers jointly plan, observe and analyze lessons and teaching-learning processes, seeking continuous improvement (Weaver et al., 2024). Similarly, in arts-based education, collaboration among experts from different fields—artists, teachers, researchers and students—allows for the integration and study of educational processes through collective artistic practices. Both approaches also share the premise of anchoring research in the educational context. Arts-based education is grounded in situated practices (Mesías-Lema et al., 2022), meaning artistic projects that are developed in specific contexts and respond to the interests and needs of participants. This aligns with the principles of LS, which situate the classroom as a real stage for research, with “adaptive practices” that eliminate limited and heterogeneous approaches in teaching (Mcmillan and Jess, 2023).

Lesson studies that introduce the arts enable the exploration of sensitive and socially relevant issues in schools through artistic strategies and creative languages (Heijnen et al., 2021). In this context, “artivism,” a movement linked to contemporary art characterized by a strong commitment to social causes (Mesías-Lema, 2018), emerges as a viable complement to enrich teacher training in the field of HRE. Some current examples of this variety of contemporary art are Ai WeiWei’s works such as “Remembering” (2009), consisting of thousands of backpacks that represent the children who died in the earthquake of Sichuan; and groups like Handspring Puppet Company and Good Chance Theatre, authors of the performance “The Walk” (2021-), where Little Amal, a large puppet is transported around the world to represent the long journey of a Syrian refugee girl. Participation in artistic processes of this kind can foster critical thinking and meaningful learning, enhancing teaching practice through creative reflection and questioning of reality (Santos, 2022). Moreover, art has the capacity to evoke emotional responses, reinforcing empathy towards the suffering of others and contributing to a more aware teacher training concerning current issues (Vickhoff, 2023). This matches research results that asserts that Human Rights Education requires the teacher’s emotional involvement and commitment to the subject (Washburn-Madrigal, 2022). Koo (2019) refers to this as “human rights sensitivity”, and Kong and Han (2023) include it within the necessary recognition of responsibility for the impact that one’s own actions have on the rights of others.

On the other hand, as has been seen previously, the need for a commitment (lato sensu) with the defence of these rights cannot be ignored. This approach is present in some areas of pedagogical theories which advocate participatory methodologies in order to foster “education reactive to injustice” of “activism-transformation” (Chaves-Salas and Washburn-Madrigal, 2022; Lecuona Prats, 2022). Connecting both points, the emotional and activist, an education based on the recognition of feelings and human potential is needed in order to seek solutions to their problems independently and also in education.

Despite these theoretical advances, the literature on teacher training in the specific subject of Children’s Rights is not substantial. That is why greater focus will be placed on the more generic framework of Human Rights, on the premise that the former is partly included within them (Tosi, 2004). It is understood that HRE includes, amongst their objectives, the training of people in the rights that are recognized in international treaties as innate, what mechanisms exist for their defence and how to recognize when they or others violate them. This is contained in the UN World Program for HRE, started in 2005, which includes the principle of respect for human rights in the educational process itself (Robinson et al., 2020).

There are many perspectives that have been expressed from the academic field about the problems encountered in the practical implementation of this program, one of the most relevant being that of teachers. For Sharma (2022), it is a paradox that, in order to train in Human Rights, we first require teaching staff who are already trained in that field, which continues to pose difficulties given the recent nature of this approach. In the same line, Wall et al. (2019) highlight that commitment to educators is a necessary condition for a true commitment to the education of children. Therefore, given these conditions, the role of teachers is not only to educate students in human rights but also to educate themselves (Díez-Gutiérrez, 2020).

Analyzing the teacher training curricula in various universities in Australia, the United Kingdom and Sweden, Robinson et al. (2020), came to the conclusion that although the need for teaching about the content and defence of Human Rights is usually recognized, there will be no further development if future educators are not provided with tools or pedagogical strategies for this purpose. In the cases of Spain, Finland and Ireland, Neubauer et al. (2022) have identified a lack of clear presence of human rights in the curricula, noting that they tended to be grouped around the rather hazy concept of promoting “human dignity” and spread across various subjects. It can be stated that, in general terms, education in human rights is a pending subject to be included in the training curriculum for teachers.

The difficulties encountered by teachers when developing educational projects in HRE may be added to this lack of training. Studies conducted by Struthers (2016) in England, Cassidy et al. (2014) in Scotland, and Kasa et al. (2023) in Finland indicate that one of the most salient points, which restricts their willingness to implement them, is the perception of this topic as sensitive and controversial, along with the feeling that they lack the knowledge and pedagogical strategies to teach it to their students without doing so frivolously or disrespectfully. In this context, Lesson Studies emerge as a powerful tool to improve teacher training and promote curricular transformation (Lewis and Takahashi, 2013; Kim-Eng Lee and Mun Ling, 2013), introducing quality processes in HRE. This continuous improvement methodology allows teachers to act as curriculum designers, working from the “inside” of the classrooms to the “outside,” transforming specific aspects of the classroom to generate changes at the institutional level (Dudley, 2012; Kim et al., 2021). They are, therefore, a vehicle for transformation that enables movement from the classroom to the school and to the system (Dudley et al., 2019).

The problem identified for the development of this lesson study was the lack of addressing children’s rights education within university teacher training. The objective that guided this research and artistic practice was to design a teacher training program that combined the LS approach with arts-based education as a pedagogical strategy. This approach aimed to strengthen future teachers' knowledge of children’s human rights, providing specific learning that enables them to implement this teaching in their professional practice and adequately prepare them to do so.

The sample for this study consists of Degree in Early Childhood Education students (n = 101) from the Faculty of Education Sciences at the University of A Coruña, in Galicia, Spain. At the time of the research, the participants were in their third year of the four required to obtain their teaching degree. It is important to note that this study began just after the students completed their first month-long internship in educational centers. Although their direct experience is still brief, it is particularly relevant due to its recent nature. The arts-based teacher training program was integrated into the compulsory course of Didactics of Plastic Expression, with a workload of 60 h, making it the first course in their training linked to artistic languages. It is crucial to emphasize that there are no courses (either prior or pending) in the university curriculum that specifically address education in human rights or children’s rights. These factors make this experience a dual novel challenge for the participants and highlight the importance of implementing this educational program.

The structure of this research, as well as the construction of its methodological framework, is based on the conception of lesson study as a collaborative and in-depth form of investigative action (Mynott and O'Reilly, 2022). Therefore, to carry out this study thoroughly, a team of experts in the relevant fields and strategies was assembled, incorporating tasks typical of lesson studies as well as those specific to arts-based education (see Table 1). The tasks established for each of these experts combined strategies from both LS and arts-based education. Thus, the principal investigator (PI), specialized in university artistic teacher training, coordinated the process while also acting in the role of the Japanese LS model known as koshi (Seleznyov, 2018). In addition to being a pedagogical guide, their role was that of a “knowledgeable other,” collecting qualitative data—such as field notes and photographs—during the process to provide external observer perspectives during the final phase of the study (Kim et al., 2021; Watanabe, 2002). Finally, the classroom instructor (ART), who holds a degree in Fine Arts and is an expert in artistic education methodologies, contributed specific knowledge about artistic languages. This last figure was responsible for applying a key methodological strategy in arts-based education, A/r/tography, as a fundamental task for artistic educators to enhance educational and teaching practices (Eisner, 1993; Irwin and de Cosson, 2004). These three initials corresponding to “Artist,” “Researcher,” and “Teacher” combine a triple identity for researchers working with the arts, simultaneously addressing artistic, educational, and research interests (Elliott, 2015). Alongside these figures, an expert researcher in children’s rights and pedagogical strategies in Early Childhood Education (SME1) also participated to provide guidance on her area and implementation methods, along with a specialist in statistical and quantitative analysis in social science studies (SME2), responsible for designing instruments and studying quantitative data.

Benefiting from their specialties, these experts began their collaboration based on the kyozaikenkyu phase (Watanabe et al., 2008), investigating and analyzing educational materials, pedagogical strategies, and other related prior studies in order to plan, develop, and understand the study to be conducted as rigorously as possible. The collaboration among these specialists permeated the three phases of the arts-based lesson study: (1) Study and Plan; (2) Research Lesson; and (3) Data Analysis and Study Reflection (Murata, 2011; Lewis and Hurd, 2011; Collet, 2019; Murata and Lee, 2020). These three phases, along with their actions and responsible parties, are outlined and detailed in the following methodological scheme (see Table 1), with each phase occupying one month of the total three-month research period.

The Research Lesson as the key element of the Arts-Based Teacher Training Program was based on the development of a work of art through an art installation inspired by the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). The artistic training began with an information session on legislative documents regarding children’s rights, focused on these documents led by SME1. This session took place in the form of a conversation-debate where empirical data on the current situation of these rights and their violation was provided with the ongoing mediation of the expert. Having been introduced to the subject, groups of 4 or 5 students were formed, each focusing on one of the principles of protection. The preparation time for their proposals was set at one week for discussion about the established law and the artistic construction process, describing the metaphor and its artistic references and synthesizing the material resources. The groups discussed and organized the artistic process, identifying material resources and artistic references to give shape to the final metaphor for collective artistic work. After their group presentations, common points were sought for the construction of the joint installation. The final inspiration emerged from the work of prominent contemporary artists, such as Ana Soler, whose creations challenge conventional limits by transforming space, multiplying objects, and giving a sensory dimension to time as exemplified in her work “Flywater Bags” (2014). Similarly, the activism and engagement present in Irantzu Lekue’s macro installation “#10000 Joan-Etorrian” (2016) uses community art to occupy squares and address social and political issues. The appreciation of poetry in everyday life and the use of common objects is related to Chiharu Shiota’s installations, where intertwined threads that occupy museums create somber and disturbing atmospheres, as in “Human Rhizome” (2023); while at other times they evoke memories through personal elements, as in “Living Inside” (2021). The conception of this artistic installation stems from a meticulous construction based on solid metaphors that become a pedagogical strategy.

Taking after these pioneer referents of contemporary artivism, in order to turn them into something observable and palpable, a sculpture (installation) was created to convey the metaphor of “rain” and human rights as impermeable elements.

One of the essential requirements of this lesson study is to have a reliable tool (Willems and Van den Bossche, 2019) to measure future teachers' perceptions and actual knowledge about teaching Children’s Rights. Therefore, although the study pays special attention to constructing a quantitative study tool in the form of a test, direct collection of field notes (Dudley, 2019) and photographic records (Banks, 2007) were also used as visual results of the research process. These qualitative data aimed to enrich the analysis, addressing all phases of the process to establish a foundation for the researchers' discussion on the participants' learning (Dudley, 2019). The inclusion of these instruments serves as a fundamental link between LS and arts-based educational methodology, highlighting the central role of combining textual and visual data as facilitators of ideas that are not accessible through other means, key to artistic research (Eisner, 1981).

The initial questions of the test included ten statements, organized in pairs that explored the following areas: prior knowledge about training in Education on Human Rights (EDH) necessary to address them in the classroom, availability of appropriate strategies and tools for implementation, willingness to apply this knowledge, and awareness of the importance of teaching these rights. Their level of agreement was measured using a Likert scale, consisting of five options: “completely agree” (+2 points), “agree” (+1 point), “Not known/Not answered” (0 points), “disagree” (−1 point), and “completely disagree” (−2 points). In this way, the maximum value for each question would be 202 and 200, while the minimum would be −202 and −200.

Measuring their concrete knowledge about children’s rights is a highly complex variable, which requires a clear and defined framework for reliable results (Nichols and Sugrue, 2005; DeVellis, 2006). For this purpose, we decided to limit our focus to their knowledge of the contents of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). This decision is based on the fact that, as noted in previous sections, this document is pioneering in the field of children’s rights: it explicitly and directly includes the basic concepts necessary for meaningful understanding, making its general approach suitable for establishing the foundations of the study without compromising the validity of the results.

The Classical Test Theory, based on true score principles, has been used as guidance when developing this tool presenting itself as a simple and at the same time effective framework for conceptualizing the process of measuring hidden variables. Following Novick (1966), this CTC axiom is expressed as follows:

where e, x and τ are random variables, representing the measurement error, the empirical or observed score, and the true score, respectively, and g is a measurement tool and a specific experimental subject. There are various quality controls for the tests, based on evaluating their reliability (accuracy in measurement) and their validity (adequacy to the object of study) (Tavakol and Dennick, 2011). In the case of reliability, the main elements evaluated are the consistency of the students’ responses throughout the test (internal consistency) and between the tests administered (coefficient of stability) (Crocker and Algina, 1986). For this purpose, there are different tools that evaluate these aspects. The most common consistency tests attempt to estimate the proportion of the empirical score that corresponds to the measurement error, therefore arriving at an indirect estimate of the true score. To calculate the internal consistency of the items that can be used in this case, the Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 (Downing, 2004) may be employed, while the stability coefficient between parallel tests was carried out through Spearman’s non-parametric correlation. Other measures, such as difficulty and discrimination indexes, were added to these broad measures. Finally, the standard error of measurement (SEM) was calculated, which should lead to more appropriate conclusions about the test results.

Regarding validity, the line of Knapp and Mueller (2010), the most appropriate procedure is that of construct validity, i.e. checking to what degree the test items correspond to the construct that is intended to be evaluated. In this case, the correspondence with the construct is very clear, given that the test questions were built based on each of the articles of the Convention. To ensure that our tool met this criterion, two of the researchers (SME1 and SME2), thematically encoded the articles of the Convention and created item (question) proposals independently. They checked their differences and reached an agreement afterwards. As final step, four independent experts were consulted about the correlation of the final 74 item list and provided positive reports on the matter (Sullivan, 2011). 74 is the sum of the parallel tests’ items. The encoding process gave 37 items as a result, which were reformulated to obtain two of each and therefore create two mirrored parts of the test, each consisting of presumably equivalent questions. These questions had three answer options, one of which was the correct one.

Finally, to ensure that the test had guarantees before the pre-test, an initial application was made on a separated sample of subjects as a pilot study (not pertaining to the main 101 group, but of the same University degree and course). This first application was used as a guide to improve those aspects that seemed more problematic, simplifying questions that were ambiguous or particularly complex in their formulation and balance the items in consequence.

Following the recommendations of Knapp (2001), a first exploratory analysis led to the difficulty and discrimination indexes of the different items being evaluated. As can be seen in Figure 1, the difficulty indexes of each of the test items were notably more homogeneous in the post-test than in the pre-test, especially in specific questions that were particularly difficult, both in the pre- and in the post-test—when analyzed both in isolation and comparatively, it is observed that the difficulty may have been influenced by a more extensive wording in its premise and in the response options. Regarding the discrimination indexes of the questions, they were not high enough in any case, remaining mostly above 0, but without reaching relevant numbers, such as 0.3.

Given the significant dispersion of difficulty in some items, the Kuder—Richardson Formula 20 (KR20), adjusted by the Horst modification (Merino and Charter, 2010) for the dispersion of the items due to non-compliance with the tau equivalent, was applied as an initial measure of internal coherence. The result of this adjusted calculation was different in the pre- and post-tests, with a progression from r = 0.613 to r = 0.727. In both cases, it is within an acceptable fidelity (Salvucci et al., 1997; Mohamad et al., 2015). This study’s index does not improve (r = 0.665) if the most difficult questions, those that stand below the difficulty mean in both tests, are removed; it can therefore be deduced that difficulty is not the most distorting variable in this case.

As for the parallel tests’ assumption, we carried out correlation tests to check if there was a similarity between first and second halves of the pre-test and the post-test. We correlated both the total scores in each question (i.e. how many right vs wrong answers there were), and each student’s total score in each half. Since these are non-normal variables, we used Spearman’s non-parametric rank correlation. We found significant (p < 0.05) correlations between student’s scores (ρ = 0.425) and between item’s scores (ρ = 0.443) in the pre-test, while only between student’s scores in the post-test (ρ = 0.443). However, it must be taken into account that non-parametric statistics are generally weaker and might underestimate the actual correlations between these variables. We can also consider that the complexity of our construct makes it difficult to build completely homogeneous pairs of questions without directly repeating them.

The visual data collected during the lesson study reflect a high-quality artistic training focused on creating a collective installation, inspired by pioneering contemporary references and strong metaphors that address the contents of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). Due to its large scale, the work was relocated to the outdoor spaces of the Faculty, on the university campus, where its setting not only facilitated visibility but also promoted interaction with the environment and the public. This interaction was in line with the artivist approach of contemporary art, creating an active dialogue between the artwork, the space and the viewers–participants (see Figure 2).

The aesthetic result was a translucent umbrella suspended from an elevated structure as the main feature of the work and a metaphor for protection (see Figure 2). There were distributed paper toys (fortune tellers) down to the ground, emphasizing the idea of keeping these rights available and accessible to everyone. These paper objects used the physical document of the convention as their base material. The text was modified through cutting and word selection to foster new forms of expression while maintaining the original message. The teachers in early training contributed by creating these origami items and placing them in individual cellophane bags, as elements that enabled what they preserved to be seen but not altered (see Figure 2).

Other metaphors proposed by the students were observed: the use of paper as a base element (the impartiality of the color white allows us to create identical but unique objects), toys (due to our connection with childhood) or the factor of chance (a reminder of the malleability of these rights, their legal loopholes and violations). This study concluded that the final result was an amalgamation of the ideas, claims and strategies presented by teachers in initial training in the classroom. This training artistically synthesized the information and specific data about their knowledge of Children’s Rights that would subsequently give rise to the results collected through the post-test.

Based on the comparative analysis of quantitative data between the pre- and post-test, we found that the Likert test scale also shows a notable improvement in various indicators of awareness regarding the importance of children’s rights and their introduction as content in their future teaching practice and educational curricula. The field notes collected by the koshi (PI) during the training process underscore this evolution. What the global scores (g.s.) reveal is that, in the first test, very few participants felt they had received sufficient training in HRE to address these topics in the classroom (g.s. = −26). However, in the post-test, these figures improved significantly, demonstrating increased self-confidence thanks to the arts-based training program to tackle these issues. As one participant stated: “Before this training, I knew nothing about human rights, and even less about children’s rights… Now, I believe I have enough training to teach them to my future students, and it is essential that I do” (P96_Phase2_27/04/2023).

Regarding the willingness to introduce these topics into their future teaching practice, this already started from high scores in the pre-test (g.s. = 100), as well as awareness of the importance of teaching children’s rights (g.s. = 160 and 164). These scores were consistent in the post-test, although with specific arguments reflecting a strong commitment to implementing these contents in their curricula: “Before, I wasn’t sure how to approach these topics; I was afraid of being disrespectful. Now, I feel I have the knowledge to discuss children’s rights and address their questions without taboos in the classroom” (P102_Phase2_28/04/2023). Several participants expressed that they not only gained knowledge but also greater self-confidence in addressing these topics in the classroom: “I have always thought it essential to teach human rights, so that students know what they are and can defend them. To be honest, I didn’t know if I would do it; I didn’t know how… now I know it is an essential challenge to tackle” (P14_Phase2_24/04/2023).

In relation to the provision of sufficient strategies and tools to do so (g.s. = −20), the pre-test notes demonstrate that participants considered them inadequate. After the training, a quantitative improvement was observed, indicating that teachers felt art is an appropriate pedagogical tool. This reinforces the idea that more robust training in HRE can have a direct impact on educational practice: “Art has been a way to express oneself without speaking… creating collaboratively is a process through which we can sensitively teach these topics, but in a very impactful and enriching way” (P30_Phase2_28/04/2023). This process highlighted the transformative power of creative methodologies, such as art, in teaching human rights, which should occupy a central place in their future teaching practice.

It can be affirmed that the LS and arts-based training process has shown signs of its potential to contribute to what, according to the analysis of the literature, is one of the greatest challenges that currently exist for the teaching of HRE: The lack of willingness and confidence among teachers to convey that knowledge, caused by the absence of training (Lo, 2020; Isenström and Quennerstedt, 2020; Cheng, 2019; Vissing et al., 2021).

Regarding the comparison of both tests (pre-test and post-test) on specific knowledge, there is a notable improvement in the test results. This is reflected in three aspects of the measurements: a homogenization and improvement of the quality indexes of the measurement tool; the distorting effect of the lack of knowledge about specific areas of children’s rights disappearing; and the average score increasing from 52 to 64.3, along with a decrease in the difficulty index, which was 0.869 in the post-test, down from 0.703 in the pre-test. Only eight questions maintained or worsened the number of correct answers, all related to more legal or juridical aspects within the framework of children’s rights, suggesting that this result is due to these topics being further removed from the educational field.

The Mann–Whitney U test p-value for the comparison of the results of both tests is < 0.05, consistent with previous observations, which suggests that the differences between the two tests are statistically significant and that there was a real change between the two measurements. Considering the data, it is noteworthy that such a significant change in the volume and perception of this knowledge occurred with a training process lasting only a month. Based on the data, two fundamental facts can be stated: first, that the students achieved considerably better results in the post-test compared to the pre-test; and second, that they have a more positive perception of their knowledge regarding children’s rights. Both are essential for correctly understanding our interpretation of the study, although the first is clearly influenced by the aforementioned quality indexes. This reinforces the idea that arts-based training can also serve as an effective method for teaching child rights to pre-service teachers.

The combination of the LS approach with arts-based education emerges as an innovative and growing pedagogical strategy that has proven effective in addressing the complexity of HRE in university teacher training. A key aspect of this proposal is the introduction of specific teachings regarding children’s rights, a topic that has been little explored in research, which tends to focus on HRE in general. Including training in children’s rights within the curriculum for future educators, especially in the Degree in Early Childhood Education, is essential. These future educators will play a capital role in imparting this knowledge to their students, enabling children to understand their rights as inviolable principles of their treatment and well-being. In this sense, the process of collective artistic experimentation was crucial in bringing students closer to the topic, sensitizing them about it, thus promoting a deeper understanding and genuine commitment.

The analysis of both quantitative and qualitative results from the research lesson evidences not only the effectiveness of the arts in teaching children’s rights but also the impact of the artistic process on future teaching practices, as indicated by their willingness to include children’s rights in their future curricula and educational plans. This research opens a promising path for future inquiries that explore the use of lesson study in combination with arts-based education as creative and investigative strategies to address sensitive and socially relevant issues in teacher training. Art and creative experiences emerge as key tools for training educators committed to the continuous improvement of their practices, empowering them to face the challenges of contemporary education as agents of educational and social change.

This research is part of the project “The Rights of Children, Adolescents, and Young People: Inhabiting Activist Projects with Students, Teachers, and Contemporary Artists” (PID2020-117147RA-I00), funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. The publication was also supported by funding from the Xunta de Galicia within the program of aid to competitive research units in Galicia, through the project Consolidación e Estructuración de Unidades de Investigación Competitivas 2024 GPC-ARTE-FACTO (G000796), with code ED431B 2027/07. Additionally, this work received support from the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of Spain through aid for the training of university teachers, under the framework of the State Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation (PEICTI), with contracts granted to Xosé Carlos Veiga García (FPU19/03179) and Carla Álvarez-Barrio (FPU22/03696). Finally, thanks are extended to Mendeley Data for hosting the data of this research, available for consultation at https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/7yx6hxy7ch/2.